James5

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It’s hard to keep things ethical. Even as supermarkets start to provide fair trade, organic, carbon neutral stuff there are some parts of our ‘necessary consumption’ that it seems will always be at least a little bit tainted. I’ve been thinking about petrol (gas for any USians reading) for instance and how hard it is to run a car without being complicit in human rights abuse, environmental degradation and according to the rumors even the war in Iraq! But as I’m not quite ready to take the jump to a totally petrol/car free lifestyle (soon and very soon God willing), I’m torn between different ethical considerations when buying fuel. Firstly though, obviously the best thing any of us can do is reduce (the second best thing is to reduce some more). We need to radically rethink our transportation lifestyle. Buy a bike, use public transport, carpool, walk! Is there a better option then burning up some ancient oil? Let’s start making people feel guilty about one-person trips in the car! Secondly, I’m not sure how up-to-date some of this information is, so if you know better please let me know so I can update it.

Ok as far as oil companies go they pretty much all look pretty evil to me. They all are trying to greenwash themselves (though some more then others) and most contain some sort of commitment to social responsibility and human rights on their websites. Mobil belongs to one of the most profitable companies in the world, with a litany of bad sutff in it’s history and continuing today. Caltex is owned by ChevronTexaco (another big American oil company) that has a bad safety and environmental record and is implicated in misdeeds in Nigeria. Shell is one of the largest private sector energy corporations in the world, and while they have taken out lots of advertisements about how green they are becoming at the pump they haven’t even begun to offer some cleaner fuel options and they are still doing wrong in Nigeria. BP has probably spent the most trying to green up their image - remember the old shield now a green and yellow sun? Their previous head guy Lord Browne seems to pretty cool - in 2002 he declared global warming to be real, and you may remember him from The Corporation documentary (his interview was fantastic). In their quest for oil they’ve wreaked some havoc in Columbia and have a pretty imperialist past.

So that’s a quick some up of the major problems with the major players. There are some other retailers like 7 Eleven, United, Lucky 7, and other independents, but information isn’t as either to find on the smaller guys. I think they all source their petrol from one of the big guys anyway - eg. I heard that United uses Mobil petrol. Boycott-wise I’m not sure there is much we can do about these human rights abuses, have a read of OilWatch do some Googling and work out for yourself who you think is most genuine about fixing problems with their supply. The one difference that may be of interest to us is their environmental impact.

Once again, at the supply side they are all pretty much the same, but once it gets to the retail pump there is actually a difference! United was the pioneer in the Australian petrol market with their Plus ULP fuel product that used sugar cane waste to add ethanol to the fuel, and making it burn a little bit cleaner. Not only that but it cost’s about 4c cheaper then regular ULP. Sweet. And just recently Caltex has brought out their E10 fuel, which also contains 10% ethanol. And don’t believe all the rubbish you may have heard about ethanol killing your engine, it may give a slight hit in kilometres per litre but should harm your car in any way (according to wiki).

So basically there isn’t much choice out there. If you really care about any of this you’re best off writing to the companies and letting them know, maybe even pick one to boycott and tell them why you are doing so. Keep track of groups like OilWatch and get involved in campaigns to make things better. Also try and make the switch to a fuel that’s friendlier to the environment. It’s not a big change but enough demand may help to change things - it won’t even cost you anything more! It’s still hard to keep things ethical, but it’s still important to stay informed and realistic about our global impact. Personally, I’m opting for United’s ethanol where possible then BP (I hoped I’m not sucked in by greenwashing) or an independent. Also, when paying for the petrol mentioning how good ethical fuel would be is always an option - though having known a friend who worked at a petrol station I’m not sure how much good it will do.

One last thing… also don’t forget that there are heaps of carbon offset programs that will plant trees and invest in good energy tech to negate the impact of your car/lifestyle.

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